Kibratu - The Quarters

Kibratu

0. In your ritual space,
say as you walk in a circle (in either direction) -

Isaya Isaya Riqa Riqa!Be off, be off,
begone, begone!

Use your hands like you are
shooing away birds. Imagine that everything bothering you
has a physical form and that you are shooing it away. You
may use your hands alone or a dagger as well. Say it until
you feelthe space is clean, but no more than 7 times. Then
go to the center of the circle and face east (if you have
used the dagger, put it in its sheath or on the ground, out
of the way).

1. With the fingers of your dominant
hand together, touching your forehead between the eyes,
say:

AshassikiI call upon
you

Imagine and feel an electrically charged
light coming from your heart and reaching your forehead at
the place your hand touches.

2. Touching your
genital area say, depending on your sex:

Gal
(vulva) or Gish (phallus)Akkadian
Bissuru and Isharu

As you say it,
imagine and feel the light descending externally with your
hand as well as internally from your forehead down through
your spine to your genitals.

3. Touching your
right shoulder, say:>

Anaku LublutMay
I have life!

Feel the light ascend to your heart
and then out to your right shoulder.

4. Touching
your left shoulder,say:

Anaku
LushlimaMay I have health!

Feel the
light cross over to your left shoulder.

5.
Interlacing your hands at the level of your heart,
say:

Ana dar dalilikunu ludlulMay I
sing your praises forever!

Imagine a globe of
radiant light centered on your heart and filling your whole
body, illuminating the space you are in.

6.Advance
to the east, or stand where you are, and imagine a
pentagram on your forehead. Draw it or fling it out to the
edge of your circle,
saying:

DilbatVenus, Lady of
Battles

Imagine the energy you have seen before
going out of your hand or hands and composing the star
before you. It remains there.

7. Turn to the north
(counterclockwise = the direction of the spinning earth),
and say:

MulPleiades

See
the star and feel it as before.

8. Turn to the
west, and
say:

MushituNight

See the
same as before.

9. Facing south,
say:

BirKidney Star (a part of
Virgo)

Imagine it like the others.

10.
Facing east again, reach above your head and draw the
pentagram or fling it out and up,
saying:

Anna(Akkadian:
Shamé)Heaven

See the star at a spot
twice your height above you.

11. Look down and
draw a pentagram on the earth, or fling it out towards the
ground, saying:

Kia(Akkadian:
Ersetu)Earth

Imagine a pentagram at a
depth twice your height beneath you.

12. Standing
straight, with your arms outstretched in the form of a
cross, say (in either Akkadian or Sumerian, both aren't
necessary):

.It is essential to begin
all magickal or meditative work with a basic preliminary
ritual. The beginning of the rite is to clean the area
where you are going to work. The space is thereby
neutralized, and in this neutral space you can make a fresh
start. In order to create anything new, you must have all
the elements present, in their most basic form. A simple
opening ritual therefore acknowledges the banished,
cleansed, neutralized and unformed nature of the space,and
imposes or informs symbolic space in its place.
These symbolic names, with all their correspondences, are
the raw materials out of which the magickal universe is
created. They are spoken and placed in a traditional or
archetypal pattern, and represent the basic order of
creation, the constituents of consciousness. With the
cleansing and banishing, you have made a neutral space,
chaos - with the first ritual, you begin to create order,
to do magick.

Every modern magickal system employs
a short opening ritual which simply and concisely recreates
in symbol the basic principles of the universe. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, which Mathers and Westcott introduced in their Golden Dawn curriculum, is the most widely used. The principle is familiar as the Craft's Casting of the Circle, and the Pentagram rite has expanded and been adapted by many systems, such as Edred Thorsson's Hammer Rite in Rune Magick, which emphasizes the cardinal points and the creative force of the runes, and Aleister Crowley's Star Ruby, which celebrates sexual force in the language of neo-platonic hermeticism. Such rituals succinctlly state the entire magickal philosophy, representing creation as a mandala, static just long enough to view it, before once again entering its play. You cannot begin to do magick until you have committed your simple ritual to memory, and you will not have succeeded in magick until you have understood it.

The professional magicians of Babylon had many rituals for specific cases that came their way. And we do not know much of Babylonian theurgy. But we have many prophylactic spells and prayers, and some are quite general and bear similarit to the 19th century Pentagram Ritual. Because of its familiarity, utility, and elegance, I have composed the Sumero/Akkadian ritual above based upon the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram as practiced in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Crowley's Star Ruby and Liber V, using sections and phrases taken directly from the magickal compilations Maqlu, Shurpu, Utukku Lemnutu, and the Namburbi.

The ritual derives its power from your own particular consciousness, symbolized by the "third eye" between your eyes on your forehead, and also from the universal consciousness that brought you into existence, which sustains you, and out of which you also create, represented by your genitals (for example, Enki's semen (Sumerian a2, which also means water) is poetically called the source of the Tigris and Euphrates, while Inanna's "vulva is wondrous"(gal4.la.ni u6.di.dam)). The light from these forces converges in your heart, which is your unique path. Your hands, head and genitals extend from your central heart as a balanced cross, each of them representing a necessary and particular aspect of your character, as well as the character of the universe of which you are a necessary and particular part.

The pentagram was a popular symbol in all periods in Mesopotamia. In Sumerian called Ub, in Akkadian Kibratu, it means a quarter or region of the universe, and is therefore the perfect symbol for the cardinal directions in the Pentagram Ritual.

The sources for the ritual are as follows:Step 0. - The first line of an incantation in Maqlu tablet 5, lines 166-184.Steps 1-11: From Richard Caplice's edition of the Namburbi spells, Namburbi Texts in the British Museum, Orientalia 39 (1970), pp. 123-132.Step 13 is a combination of R. Campbell Thompson's The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia(corrected), (the series Utukku Limmutu), London, Luzac & Col, 1903, vol.I, 15-16; and Erica Reiner, $urpu, A Collection of Sumerian and Akkadian Incantations, AfO Beiheft 11 (1958), p. 46 line 52; p.47, line 63; and p. 49, lines 124-5.